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GENEALOGY

Below are some online genealogy resources that I have found helpful in my search. If you are aware of any others that help advance ones evidence for tracing their tree, especially free ones, please let me know. (Updated: 08 Dec. 2007)

Name	Information
Family Search	Helpful resources including a searchable 1880 US, and 1881 Canadian and British Censuses.
Rootsweb	Free repository of lots of information. Users can upload GEDCOMs and Rootsweb even offers free webspace for genealogy web sites. A useful feature are Post-ems. Post-ems allow the user to add notes to individuals they find in many places on Rootsweb. I use Post-ems to indicate how I or my wife are related, and names of parents, siblings, and children, if all are deceased. I encourage all researchers to do the same.
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)	Enter the state and county, and choose "cemetery" as the "Feature Class", for example, and it will give you a list of all the cemeteries in that county. You can then print a list, or download a list to a delimited file.
Ancestrally Challenged	Discussion forum that lists information by state, instead of by surname.
U.S. Daughters of the War of 1812	Genealogical site for women who are descendants of veterans of the War of 1812.
Helpful Links	Kip Sperry's list of helpful genealogy sites.
Google Books	Google books is a helpful resource to find full texts of out of copyright books. The PDFs are available for download, but are not searchable. However, one can search the full text online. Books found via Google's book search can be added to your personal "library". Be aware that this library is publicly searchable, but it a handy way to gather all the resources one finds. In addition to the books Google has already scanned, both those scanned and not, can be searched for in library card catalogs, so one might find a library with these volumes.
New Hampshire State Papers	40 Volumes of New Hampshire records in PDF. Download the 4 MB searchable index to learn which volume has the information you seek.
GenSmarts	GenSmarts is an "Automated Genealogy Research" program. It can read the native file format of most common genealogy programs, or a GEDCOM file. It looks for events that do not have sources, or incomplete sources and makes suggestions for researching those gaps. It also estimates dates and places for events that are not filled in to give further suggestions. Sometimes the odd occurance of recommending checking a record in another location for someone who is already dead in another location occurs. But this is usually due to missing or incomplete sources. GenSmarts recommends free and fee websites, plus other resources. It sells for about $25.00 for the download only version, but they have frequent sales, such as at Christmas for $10.00 off. There is a trial version that lets you check it out for thirty days, but reports can only be previewed. This program is addictive. It can perform the lookup of information at a suggested site without haveing to do the typing yourself. It is very addictive. I have found an easy way to reduce it to more maneagable pieces, by creating lists of the descendants of my end of line ancestors. I then work my way through the suggestions for that group. I love how I can do a land patent search for each person at the BLM in rapid succession. If the automated search does not give relevant information, the user can tweak it to make sure variant spellings are tried. I am quickly exhausting the free resources, such as Rootsweb, the BLM, the 1880 US and 1881 English Census, and various state archives. Once I have tried all of those I can determine which line to focus and print reports of things to check when I go to the library to check Ancestry.com, or the nearest LDS center to check many other sites.
Ancestry.com	This is the major fee-based genealogy site. There are some always free offerings, and searches can tell you what they have, but do not show information. Free membership includes the ability to upload GEDCOMs. There are occasional periods of a few days when new material comes online, such as a new census, when anyone can search. If you get your research organized and have a plan of action to search specific databases, such as censuses, their initial two-week trial can be worthwhile. LDS Family History Centers offer access to Ancestry and many other fee-based websites or free. I found out last week that our local library has a subscription to Ancestry.com. I plan to make use of that once I get my information under control.
Missouri Death Certificates	The Missouri Secretary of State now provides Death Certificates since 1910 over 50 years old online. There is a gap of 1938 to 1945 begin online, but are indexed. Files are PDFs of the originals. The death certificates include date and place of death, burial, and cause of death. Parents names and places of birth are also listed, if the informant knew. Sometimes children give the wrong state of birth for their parents, so cross-check this information.
Georgia Death Certificates	1919-1927 Georgia Death Certificates online. Family Search offers the same information here.
SSDI	The Social Security Death Index is one of the databases available on Rootsweb. It provides date of birth and death and place of death. It is updated every couple of months, so is not current, like the version on Ancestry, but it is free. Be careful, as there are a lot of people with the same first middle and last name born on the same date. Be sure to match up with other known information to insure you have the right person. The Post-em feature is also helpful. As I work my way through my tree, I am slowly adding a Post-em about each person I find.
BLM	Bureau of Land Management Land Patent Search for all but original 13 states. If you know an ancestor lived in a certain state, you can search to see if they owned any land in this system. This may help to narrow the search for finding an elusive ancestor in the census.
South Dakota Birth Records	South Dakota Birth Records over 100 years 0ld. This helpful resource can identify place and date of birth and names of parents, and maiden name of the mother.
Dodge Family Association	Dodge Family Organization, has some free information. For $20 annual membership get access toback issues of their newsletter and much other information.
Umstead	Aims to insure accurate information via original documents to prove connections. Some DNA has indicated connections, but no paper trail has been found to fill in the blanks.
Lost Cousins	Users input what freely available US, Canadian, and British Census they have found their family, and names, etc. Aims to link up "lost cousins" who find each other this way. This is a fee-based site, but has a free membership option. If a "lost cousin" match is found, you receive an email.
Census Mate	Free Spreadsheets to aid in census transcriptions.
Ilinois Records	Illinois - Public Domain land, military, birth, marriage, and death records.
Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System	Online information for Civil War Soldiers & Sailors.
National Personnel Records Center	U.S. Military Records Online, 62 years after end of enlistment.
Civil War Graves Registration	Graves Registration Database. If an ancestor is not in it, a way is provided to add them.
Maine Genealogy	Early Maine records online.
Oxford County, Maine	Blog on Oxford County, Maine with links to information on the site.
Everton Free Genealogy Center (FGC)	Everton is a fee-based site, but does have some limited free resources that may be helpful.
Footnote	Online Digitized Documents. Some free offerings of old records. The Pennsylvania collection is great. There is also information of public records from two towns in Maine. There is an option for a free account that allows you to upload your own pictures and documents and create story pages, and comment on the files of others.

Try Album Express a program for creating digital photo albums.